Pentecostal Possibilities or "The Story of My Life"
by Milton Lorenzo (M. L.) Haney
CHAPTER 52
Pastorates in Brimfield and Ipava
The Conference that year was held in Pekin, and we had a good time. When in session a Circuit Judge in the city awoke one night finding a robber at his bedside. He sprang from the bed and closed in with the villain, who held an iron bar in his right hand. The only escape for the Judge was to hold the rascal so close to him as to prevent being struck with the iron. His daughter was sleeping in the next room, and hearing the death struggle, came out and asked: "Pa, what can I do?" The father responded: "Get the villain by the throat," and she seized and choked him down in his tracks. Two preachers were lying upstairs and heard when the robber came down with a thud. Running down, they found him prostrate and the Judge and his daughter in command of the situation. They procured a rope and he was put right in jail. The Judge called an associate to sit in his place, and the poor fellow was in the penitentiary in less than ten days.
Philip Phillips, the great singer, was at the Conference, and, hearing of the affair, came down in the morning, and asked to see the girl who had saved her father's life.
About this time there was a great awakening among the preachers in Central Illinois Conference, and much inquiry was made on the subject of holiness. The wave of opposition to the Wesleyan doctrine had not yet struck this body. We had some evangelistic services in the afternoon, and I preached on the distinction between the new birth and sanctification. The Holy Spirit was wondrously present, and on a direct call for seekers of entire sanctification there was such a rush of ministers to the altar as I have rarely seen. My brother William, a minister, was broken up as I had rarely seen him in his whole life. Had the dear brethren gone forward from that beginning, and unitedly preached as did Wesley, and Asbury, many tens of thousands would have been saved in this territory who have not been saved. At the close of the service a new man from the East came to me deeply agitated, saying he was much impressed with the service; that he had taken opposite grounds on the subject an written a small book on the Zinzendorfian base, but he surely wanted not to oppose the truth. And yet he circulated his pamphlet all the same. A Methodist preacher of the Illinois Conference had written a larger book, and went from place to place selling it as widely as possible, advocating like views with this latecomer, and then, several of our own preachers put forth a pamphlet denying sanctification as a second experience. All of these are now out of sight, and forgotten by many, but they did their work and can never undo it.
I was sent to Brimfield for the two coming years, where I met with sterling brethren and saw a gracious work of God. Bro. Kent was our Presiding Elder, and he sustained me graciously throughout. A far-reaching revival was given us the first year, closing up with the district camp on our hands, which in those days was a wonderful camp center. Bro. Kent himself was sanctified graciously in this camp that year and was nearly wild with the joy of his soul. But few could excel him as a preacher when he got in motion. But few men of God have suffered more for the cause of holiness or been truer to the doctrine. Many are in heaven who were saved in that first year, and many still on the way. The second year was not so wide in its evangelistic results, but nearly all previously converted, or sanctified, were kept, and more or less built up or strengthened. Mrs. Haney was much used of God in these two years, and was a great help to my ministry. All things considered, a wider and more permanent work was reached in Brimfield, than in the other three years in which I was out of my calling, and away from the evangelistic field.
Here lived old Bro. Farnum, who, when he came from the East years before, was a firebrand for holiness, but, finding nobody in sympathy with his soul, gradually let up on his testimony, till he staggered off the track. He had been a mighty man in prayer, but the fine gold had become dim and he hardly knew where he was. On going to a camp near Princeville, like Samson, he was feeling for the pillars! when I came out from Peoria and preached on sanctification. It was the first he had heard since coming West, and God came into his soul while I was preaching. Just as I ceased he laid his hand on the altar railing and sprang over it like a boy, shouting as he went: "Hallelujah! I have struck the trail!" I think that was the most forcible hallelujah I ever heard. He had been glorious; he was now more glorious. Here were Father Guyer, a Prince in Israel, and Belcher, and Barnes, and James Fisher, whose names were in the book of life, with holy women who knew the Lord.
One morning the Superintendent of Sunday School asked me to address his school, and there was a throng of boys present. I was led to make a fearful speech on tobacco, and in closing turned to the brethren on my right, saying: "I have not made this address with the view of saving these men in the amen corner, who are enslaved by this appetite, but to rescue these boys before they become slaves. I rarely find anybody who has the manhood to quit, after they have thoroughly began.'' Brothers Snider and Belcher, were to my right. The former was of German blood, and full of grit. He was struck with my questioning his manhood, and went home that morning well stirred up. Belcher went to his bedroom and never got up from his knees till God sanctified him, and, as he trusted Christ, turned utterly away from tobacco. Though he had use it from the time he was seven years old, he was instantly delivered from the appetite and has never touched it since.
Bro. S. was a constable and a great temperance man. On Monday he went into a hotel where there was a bar, and a drunken old Catholic doctor came in and called for a drink. Snider reproved the doctor, and he turned and said, bitterly: "---- you, Snider, you are a slave to tobacco and I am a slave to whiskey, and which is the worst?" This was the "straw which broke the camel's back," and Snider went out of the hotel shaking his head like a pugilist, saying: "I will show Haney that I can quit tobacco." I knew nothing of this for a time, but often visited Bro. Snider at his shop and found him as cross as an old bear. He was also missing from the prayer meeting, which was a surprise, for he was among the faithful. Near the end of the year I was in, and he said: "I am going to surprise you now and tell you something that no one knows but God and my soul." So he told me, and afterwards others, the points recorded above as to my talk, and his wrath, and the doctor's cursing him, and he had settled it never again to touch tobacco. "But," said he, "Bro. Haney, during the year I have suffered as no mortal knows, and there were two instances that I came within an inch of taking my own life to get rid of my suffering!" But Bro. Snider fought the battle to a finish, and to the day of his death never touched tobacco.
Bro. Belcher now lives in Bloomington, Ills., and can speak for himself. His deliverance was in a moment of time, because he gave it up for Christ's sake, making a complete consecration of his whole being to God, and trusting Christ to deliver him from everything that was vile. There are many thousands of such witnesses, and Christ does save utterly from both acquired and inherited depravity.
We went from Brimfield to Ipava, where two years were put in. In moving we chartered a car to transfer our goods, including some valuable live stock, which required personal attention. So I went with it, and my wife was to come in the evening. Reaching Yates City, they were bumping me around and I got out for rest. After much delay, my caboose was sent back a long distance, and I feared when it came up I would not get on board. As I started to reach it the train began to move. I stood ready, but when it came by the speed was so great I did not dare to touch it. "My Lord," I said, "what does this mean?" After reflection, I sent a telegram to a brother whom I chanced to know, and then prayed that God would overrule my blunder.
A brother came by and insisted I should go with him to dinner. On the way out he told me their young preacher and his wife had come, and they were going to reject him that afternoon, and had called a meeting for that purpose. He was the leading man in the church and I emptied my soul out on him in earnest protest. He argued they had a debt on the church, which this inexperienced young man could not raise. He was not the man they wanted, and they would send him back. I told him I had never known a case where a Methodist preacher was rejected that the church was not cursed as the result. I attended the meeting and saved that young preacher to the ministry. After the battle was over I took him out and told him what was done, and moved him with all my heart to do his best. He cleared the church of debt, and did a better work than any who had preceded him in recent years. Older brethren got hold of him and switched him off into Zindendorfism, and in after years we were holding a holiness convention which he attended, and the dear boy brought out his new doctrine in the hope of converting us all. But that night, he was at the altar crying good for a holy heart, and God sanctified him. All of this seemed to result from my blunder in missing the cars that day. When the passenger train came, near sunset, the first my wife knew I was seated by her side, and we reached Ipava after dark. The brother, to whom I had sent the telegram, met us and led us to the parsonage. I noticed a company was following us, and reaching the house, found the horse in the barn well fed, the cow milked and cared for, and the other blooded stock in place, while the goods were in the parsonage and a table laden with the best, with our new friends to welcome and eat with us! The Lord will manage for us beyond what we think if we will only trust him.
This church had been hindered for years by its internal divisions. The choir had been the chief subject of dispute, and the pastor preceding me had taken sides with one of the parties. The use and location of the organ formed one of their chief difficulties. Some wanted it immediately in front of the stand, others--the choir and more worldly part of the church--insisted it must be in the front gallery, nearly seventy feet away! Then there was a small group who did not want it at all! During the session of Conference, in the absence of the pastor, some members and friends of the choir broke into the church in the night and carried the organ up into the back gallery, where I found it on arriving. I was at once beset to bring it down, and by others to cast it out of the house, but I refused to meddle with it, and went to preaching on repentance and holiness. Failing to get peace by the common means, I resorted to a protracted meeting. The choir sang like larks, but nearly all of them were unconverted, and the mass of the church had lost God in the quarreling about the organ.
We went on for many days, and nights with a crowded house, but little visible change and no real confessions of sin. One Sabbath I aimed to bring before them the real causes of their failure, and to the use and locality of the organ, which many felt was the chief of all hindrances. I became fearfully moved as though heaven and hell were in sight, and cried out: "What do I care for your organ, whether it be here in front, there to the left, yonder in the gallery, or out of doors! Whether you have one organ or forty, or none at all! The mountains of sin which have risen up and compelled God to hide His face are so great, I have no time to devote to this contemptible organ question!" That night, having preached with all my might, I noticed, while making the call, a movement in the choir, and directly its members had disappeared. But the front door soon opened below and the choir reappeared, led by the chorister and organist, all coming up the aisle and kneeling at the altar of prayer! This ended the war of years, and victory came. A host of young people were converted, and the church greatly changed, and in but few places had I seen a wider work. My wife was signally endowed and graciously used in this meeting. Among others, our youngest boy was converted, which heightened our gladness. But Satan was not dead, nor all the church members either converted or sanctified. We had two camp meetings in these two years, which were graciously owned of God and made a help to many.
A genuine revival also took place at Berandotte, a little outpost four miles away, and at a school house six miles out. An exceedingly nice old gentleman at B., who was a Universalist, was wonderfully moved by the preaching on holiness, and in the attempt to seek it got converted. After his conversion he attended our first camp as a very earnest seeker of sanctification. One day, while at the altar, he arose deliberately and walked outside the line of tents and threw a plug of tobacco as far as he could send it, coming back with a holy heart! He had been afflicted with epilepsy for years and was frail, but improved in health from that time on. The last message he sent me by a friend, not long before his death, was: "Tell Bro. Haney that full salvation has delivered me from all sin, from fits, and from tobacco."
The revival at Ipava was painfully counteracted by a rebellion brought on against holiness. I think more of the converts were lost, than in any fifteen years of my pastoral life. This was led by the Sunday School Superintendent, who was sharp and wily, and probably wholly without God; but had a fearful influence over the young people. This loss I put down among the bitterest cups I ever drank. How many of those who straggled away have returned I cannot say, but their going cost my soul many a pang. No man with the light which I had, can persistently stay out of the order of Gad without much suffering. He may be lifted up here, and there, wonderfully, to prepare him for greater depths of mental conflict. It is well to listen and obey.